On the Matter of Terry Richardson’s Penis: Downtown Photog Exposed

March 16, 2010

You sure that thing can make it through an x-ray? When we last caught up with downtown photographer Terry Richardson, he was shooting a portrait of Eliot Spitzer. Richardson’s basically art-world royalty, if only because celebrities covet having their photo taken by him so much. For a reason! They’re mostly wonderful photographs. Either way, many are racy, and Richardson’s now to the point where a racy story involving his penis was bound to emerge. Like this one. Essentially:

Terry Richardson made a girl who’s modeled naked before feel creeped out for the first time.

He made her call him “Uncle Terry.”

At one point, he requested she take her tampon out for him to play with.

After which he got naked and started “waggling the biggest dick I’d ever seen dangerously close to my unclothed person.”

Also, name dropping.

His assistants took some pictures.

He requested a hand job.

He received a hand job.

The hand job was over fairly quickly.

She never went back.

Surely, there’re two sides to every story, and of course, don’t let me ruin the joy of Ms. Peck’s context for you, but suffice to say that the world of young girls (or boys) barely of-age hanging out with older artists in New York is probably no different now than whenever this story occurred. The bright-eyed lying figuratively (or literally) prostrate in front of famous people almost always yields the same results, the lesson of which is somewhere between “never meet your heroes,” and, in this instance: “Dudes do photography to get chicks naked” and “artists use eccentricity as an excuse for everything” or “the humiliating shit you put up with as a Young Person Trying To Make It better yield, at the very least, a good story, especially one you get paid for, otherwise it really was a worthless experience,” or something. I mean, are you surprised? I’m not. More than anything, though, I’m now gravely concerned for Kermit. Now is your time to speak out.